Player Manager - A Sports Progression Fantasy

2.

Tuesday, 21 January

Match 24 of 46: Chester vs FC Halifax

After studying our remaining fixtures from all kinds of angles, I decided to spend five hundred of my experience points on something from way down the bottom of my wishlist. The Live Scores perk did one simple thing - it told me the current scores from other matches, which would be helpful when I was locked into my Match Overview screen. In the age of the smartphone, this didn't seem like a critical purchase. But while we were chasing Grimsby there were bound to be times I needed to know what was happening in their match. If they were losing and we were level, maybe I would turtle up and take the point. One point closer to glory, right? 500 XP was a small commitment. A small dose of retail therapy to make me feel like I was evolving towards my end state - being a level 9000 football manager.

XP balance: 5,749

***

In November - weirdly one of our most recent matches - we had beaten Halifax 3-2 away. Their team boasted an average CA of 69 and since it had been the second big away trip in three days I had put out a weakened eleven. No such luck for the Yorkshiremen today - I was going with my team of beefy boys.

For the first half I decided to go with my favoured 4-1-4-1, which meant Chipper was on the bench. He was a soft-spoken guy, superficially polite - actually, scratch that. Politeness is politeness whether it's heartfelt or not. He didn't complain when I told him he wouldn't start, but his subsequent body language displayed some low-level grumpage. Not starting in the National League. What the hell am I doing here?

Sticky in goal was CA 43, almost twenty points behind Ben, but Sticky was crazy tall. If Halifax tried to bombard us with high balls or crosses they wouldn't get very far. Sticky's career had been derailed by his inability to combine with defenders in modern passing sequences, but today I didn't want anyone doing a short pass. What would be the point? Even in the warmups the ball had been bobbling up at random or getting stuck in a soggy patch. Going for a quick sprint, my left boot had been sucked off my foot. Bad day for anyone trying to pad their passing stats.

My back four boasted the tallest guys in their positions, starting with Christian and Glenn as the centre backs. Christian's CA 71 made Glenn's 54 look feeble, but in this kind of match Glenn was the non-league warrior you wanted. Weak link? Not today, bruv. At left back I had Cole Adams, unusually tall for the role. Perfect! His CA of 41 would be almost irrelevant if the game went as I expected. His job was to win headers and kick the ball away. Ditto Carl Carlile. He was CA 69 and winning a lot of admirers for his athletic, committed performances. We were getting offers for him but I had sent his backup, Steve Alton, on loan to Kidderminster as part of the Christian Fierce deal. Carl was staying put until the summer and he was ay-okay with that.

Magnus Evergreen was my defensive midfielder. He was a perfectly good DM, the way he was perfectly good anywhere I put him. His CA was 59 and showed no signs of having peaked, despite his weird minus 2 PA. Magnus had been trying a little evolution himself, working hard to add a little more craft to his game. That had been going well but there was no call for subtlety today. As a former champion bodybuilder, he was yet another imposing specimen.

Josh Owens was left mid. Only CA 40 and one of the least intimidating players in this particular group, but he had a long throw. He would be able to hurl the ball into Halifax's penalty box from miles out, and he could handle himself in a scrap, too. Let's just say he hadn't grown up with a silver spoon in his mouth and he wouldn't let anyone take liberties. Aff (CA 68) was the perfect player for these conditions, and I had moved him to right midfield. He was extremely limited on the right - he didn't like it and couldn't get into the groove. Today wasn't about grooves, though. It was about ploughing furrows. It was about carthorses and work and graft and sweat and mindless running. To that end, I had James Wise (54) and Andrew Harrison (50) in the centre. Andrew's loan spell away had been a huge success - players who started their careers late needed lots of minutes in their legs. They needed to play meaningful matches and lots of them, and he had got six months of action at FC United. This encounter would be meaningful but whether he learned much from it was another question. Mostly he would learn that football is supposed to be played on a flat surface.

Up front we had Henri Lyons, CA 68. I had told him not to press the defence too much and to save his energy for headers and for any chances he might get. He told me it didn't make much sense to play with a lone striker who didn't work hard. "You'll get help in the second half," I said. "And you need to be able to do all this again on Tuesday night."

All in all, it was an average CA of 56, but only two guys were under six feet tall.

I checked Halifax's lineup and saw that their average CA had slipped to 68. They had replaced their out-of-form striker with someone faster and more dynamic, but he was completely unsuitable for this kind of pitch. I set Glenn Ryder to mark him and left Christian as the spare man.

The stadium wasn't even half full. A couple of hundred away fans made all the noise. Halifax's manager - tactics 10, motivating 15 - went over to them before kick off and clenched his fists. They roared. I settled back into the dugout and pulled my hood down.

"Let's do it like they do it on the Discovery Channel," said Sandra.

I laughed. "What?"

"Don't you know that song?"

"No."

"You're more into movies." She watched as Henri passed the ball back to Glenn. Glenn waited until Halifax's striker came close, then smashed the ball long down the pitch. Sandra clicked her fingers. "Let's get medieval on their arse."

***

I like tennis sometimes. Those guys smash balls at each other for four hours and maintain a level of accuracy that's pretty unbelievable. The rhythm of the sport works - you turn your head left and right to track the ball because every stroke could be a winner or could cross the wrong side of the line. Every stroke could earn or lose a point. There are stakes to every single moment.

Ball goes left, ball goes right, ball goes left, ball goes right.

Take the same rhythm and apply it to football and you have created... Wrexham-ball!

Okay, that's not quite fair. You've created 80s football. Win headers, win duels, win tackles. Keep your shape at all costs. Get muddy while keeping a clean sheet. Get bloody while putting your body on the line for the team. Fans in the Main Stand get the centre court experience without the strawberries and cream. Ball goes left, ball goes right. Technique? Flair? Imagination? Nope. Get it launched.

Wrexham's innovation was to get premium players doing rudimentary tasks. Win a header, knock it long for Muggles to chase. Win a header, knock it long for Hardy to win a header. Win a header to win a header to get a long throw to get your big boys forward so they can win a header. On Wrexham's superb pitch, the style would eventually lead to mistakes from the oppo or a neat little bit of interplay or yes, a moment of magic from Muggles.

The problem with having a swamp for a pitch is there's almost no stakes to anything. If Henri's competing for a header on the edge of the centre circle, it almost doesn't matter if he wins it or not. He can't chase the ball, dribble past three players, and slot home under the keeper - not with the pitch trying to suck his boots off and everything reduced to two-thirds speed. If Cole plays a ball down the line for Josh to chase, it almost doesn't matter if it goes out of play. The chances of anything leading to a shot on goal were pretty slim. Two thousand six hundred people were urging their team forward, but what they were really doing was waiting for a mistake. A mistake big enough to lead to a goal.

***

Extract from Seals Live

Boggy: Twenty minutes gone here at the Deva, still nil-nil. Spectrum, what do you make of it so far?

Spectrum: [Sighs.] There's not much to say, is there? It's attritional. Deadly dull. At least we're on top.

Boggy: In a game like this with so few chances, how do you measure that?

Spectrum: We've got quite a high line and we're getting to Halifax's clearances and keeping them penned in their half. Christian Fierce is absolutely dominant and Halifax can't create anything. As soon as they cross the halfway line, Fierce is all over them. So most of the match is being played in their half and we're getting long throws and set pieces. Nothing's come of them yet but if you put pressure on a team for ninety minutes you'd hope they would eventually crack.

Boggy: Josh Owens has got a throw, now. He dries the ball with his special towel -

Spectrum: They're available in the club shop and online. Sorry, Max asked me to say that.

Boggy: I'm sure they work for the dishes just as well as for footballs. Christian Fierce is up. Glenn Ryder is up. Everyone's up except James Wise and Andrew Harrison is ten yards outside the box as cover. Here comes the throw - it's lobbed high. Comes down with snow on - Fierce helps it on - someone - cleared! Harrison chips the ball back. Lyons jumps. Ryder jumps. Cole Adams is there. He plays it out left to Owens. Owens hits a cross. Hits the first defender! Some groans from the fans. That's not helpful.

Spectrum: That's right. It's not.

Boggy: Owens with another chance. Much better this time! Who's - ? Ohh! That was a chance. That was a half-chance!

Spectrum: Magnus.

Boggy: Magnus Evergreen got a little flick and directed the ball just wide. But that's the gameplan in a nutshell. Keep Halifax in their half and load the box when we can. It isn't pretty. Let's check the chat. Pretty quiet in there, today. What've we got? Message from Caesar_the_Geezer. You wanted to be more like Wrexham? You've got your wish.

Spectrum: [Stifles a laugh.]

Boggy: Ball pumped forward. Fierce wins the header. Ryder kicks long. Out for a goal kick. [Sigh.] Let's play a game. I spy...

Spectrum: No, please.

Boggy: I don't spy, with my little eye, something beginning with M.

Spectrum: You want Max to go on? What would he do in a game like this? Can't dribble, can't pass. No, it'll be like this until the end.

Boggy: Lord have mercy.

***

At half-time it was still goalless, and while we had had a few half-chances, Halifax had done the square root of fuck all. Our defence had made mincemeat out of them - Cole, Carl, and Glenn were winning their headers and not giving anything away, but it was Fierce who was really breaking Halifax's spirit. He was too tall, too powerful, too fast, too well-positioned. It was fun to think that no-one would ever score against us ever again.

"Guys," I said, early in the break. Normally I liked to have a quiet time where everyone could decompress and I could see what changes my opponent made. Today, he had plumped for an early substitution and had already decided to take off his nippy striker and put his bigger guy on. "Their nine is coming on. We know he's having a shocking season but he only needs one chance to ruin our day. Right? Christian, you take him. Shut him all the way down. Don't let him get a kick." I stepped to the magnetic tactics board. "We're going 4-4-2. Andrew, you get first dibs on the hot water. You're welcome. Magnus is going to CM and Chippy's going on up top with Henri. We're doing the right things, lads, but these headed chances we're getting are super low quality. Unless you've got a free header, can you head the ball back square?" I showed what I wanted with a swish of a marker pen. Basically, instead of trying to score I wanted them to 'pass' the ball sideways into the mass of bodies. "Once the ball drops it's fifty-fifty if it lands at our feet or theirs. Way better odds of scoring from that. Er, Vimsy, that's right, isn't it?"

Vimsy was from the old school and had played this type of football almost his entire career. "You're right, boss. You're a natural at this."

I made a face like I'd bit into a lemon. "That's cruel, mate. Cruel. But yeah, if we're playing horrible percentage football, let's play horrible high percentage football. Anything else? Vimsy?"

He scrunched his face up. "Keep battling, lads! You've got this! Keep winning your duels and the goals will come. But look, clean sheet, yeah?"

"Why is it called a clean sheet?" said Ziggy.

"In the olden days," I said, "like after the Cambrian period but before MacBook Airs, reporters used to tally goals on a fresh piece of paper, one for each team. If it was still clean at the end of the match it meant no-one had scored against that team."

Ziggy was impressed. "You know what's weird? I like history. I never liked it at school."

"Yeah!" I said, enthusiastically. "Let's go make some history!" I pointed to the doors with both hands.

"Boss," said Sandra, checking her watch. "There's still twelve minutes left."

I stood straight again. "Right. This is why we do the speeches at the end of the break. Lesson learned. Twelve minutes? God. Oh, Livia. I heard you made a TikTok about me. Can I see it?"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. TikToks are, like, eleven minutes long, right?"

***

CLOSE-UP: LIVIA STRANTON IN HER WORK OUTFIT

Just want to do a quickTok about one of the things going round on Friday at the Fans Forum. I heard a lot of people saying Max Best wants to change the badge. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Football traditionalist Max Best wants to change the badge? Are you serious?

WIDE SHOT: MAX'S OFFICE

I'm in Max's office. My partner, Jackie Reaper, sometimes works in here so I know it well.

CLOSE-UP: LIVIA STRANTON

Apparently, some of you are stressed or pretending to be stressed that some guys in Max's inner circle have been talking about the logo being a lion when it's currently a wolf.

CLOSE-UP: THE CHESTER BADGE ON LIVIA'S TRACKSUIT TOP

IT'S A WOLF

I had the same thing with Jack. He'd talk about lions and I used to get confused but I didn't think much of it until this stupid takeover got out of hand and people started throwing lies around. I got my detective hat on and I've cracked the case. This is the filing cabinet where Vimsy leaves his unfinished cups of tea.

MEDIUM SHOT: A FILING CABINET

CLOSE-UP: HALF A DOZEN MUGS

SUPER CLOSE-UP: ONE MUG

See this? It's the Chester crown at the bottom as normal, but someone's put a lion coming out where there should be a wolf. There are five or six of these in various offices here. I've never seen them in the club shop or at the Deva. But Jackie, Max, Vimsy, the Brig, they're drinking from these mugs all day every day.

CLOSE-UP: LIVIA STRANTON

Maybe one of you knows why these mugs got made but I'll tell you what, you can tell by the stains they were made before Max Best was even born. Slight exaggeration there but he isn't from Chester and he sees this mug more than the real badge. There. Mystery solved. Case closed. I'm going to buy six mugs with the proper logo on the side. Now grow up.

***

I handed her phone back. "Who needs Christian Fierce when I've got you?"

She bit her lip. "Sorry if I was out of line. They wind me up."

I shook my head. "No, I get it." I wondered if I should ask her to delete the video, more for her own career than anything. Nah. "Weird logo on the mugs. That's amazing. Imagine if it had gone to a vote and, like, seven people voted the wrong way because I drink so much tea and those seven people thought I wanted to vandalise the badge and their votes swung it." Brooke had said that her father would come at me in twenty different ways. Max Best wants to change the badge would not have been in my top fifty guesses for one of them. "I'm going to warm up," I said, and went into my private room and compared the curse's scores to the ones on the BBC to see if there were any discrepancies - there weren't.

I stared at the wall. It stared back.

***

With Chipper on the pitch we carried a lot more threat and Halifax dropped a couple of steps deeper. Interesting - I had wanted a DM to give us extra security but the extra attacking potential was even more effective as a shield.

The origin of his nickname was something of a mystery to me. TJ said it was because he was a non-stop barrel of laughs, and given I was whizzing around Crawley like a hyperactive bee it had been possible to believe him. A rose by any other name would trap a ball just as sweetly, though. Chipper's very first act was to catch the ball on his chest while the guy marking him crumpled to the mud. Chipper turned and chipped a pass to Henri, who volleyed it back first time. Chipper cracked a thunderous volley a couple of yards over the crossbar.

The Welshman was rusty, but he was mint. Our match ratings were mostly on 6, but Chipper went right to 8. I could almost see Henri's eyes light up, and the Halifax players who weren't complaining to the referee about some perceived foul realised we had lost a couple of inches of height but gained a couple of sharp elbows.

Henri and Chipper got closer to each other and now there was a point to winning the headers, to closing down the defenders. Our percentages had gone all the way up, and Halifax responded by dropping still deeper.

Long throws, lobbed crosses, a few corners. Time and again we loaded the penalty box and created havoc. A couple of times, Halifax broke but simply couldn't get a counter going. Either we would shut it down with a tackle or interception or a winger would dribble into some mud and all the energy would leave the break.

I pulled my hood further down.

***

Boggy: Seventy minutes on the clock. Chester nil, Halifax nil. The game is one-sided but neither team really looks like scoring. On Chester's bench is Zach Green, Ziggy, and Max Best. What change would you make?

Spectrum: This isn't a match for tactics. This is a match for height and work rate. We're winning our headers so there's no point bringing Zach on. He might get a goal from a set piece, I suppose, but so might anyone.

Boggy: Max Best has gone to warm up. I think it's him - he has his hood up. It's not raining, is it?

***

With seventy-four minutes gone, I decided I couldn't wait any longer. Cole and Josh had locked their side of the pitch down - no worries there, and Aff was more likely to score than Magnus, so I took the latter off and went to the centre of midfield. It was a horrible bog so I changed my mind and shuffled Aff to be the left-sided CM with Wisey to his right and me playing right wing.

I walked up and down the side of the pitch looking for patches where the ground seemed firm. There were some.

But mostly my early role was to run up and down and compete for headers when the ball was fired at me. I won one, lost two, and watched three sail miles above me and out for a Halifax throw.

Grim.

Seventy-eight minutes. Seventy-nine.

Chipper took a long pass on the inside of his thigh, holding off his marker with impressive strength, and volleyed the ball to my feet. Thrilled to see some real football, I forgot the situation. I dropped my shoulder, nutmegged the left back, and raced past him. My speed was nerfed by the mud and the ball held up on the pitch. The left back barged me away and defied the pitch by running away with the ball. Chipper was trying not to show his displeasure at my ineptitude. Fucking disaster.

Grimacing, I chased the left back as he waded away. I slid to the side of him and hooked the ball out for a throw-in. A whole lot of calories burned to achieve precisely nothing.

I used my new perk and saw that Grimsby were winning.

Grim. Grimace. Grimsby.

While Halifax made a like-for-like substitution, I skimmed the scores from other matches. West Didsbury were winning, as they usually did. And the Saltney Town adventure had finally got underway! They were winning three-nil and Tom Westwood had scored two.

Grin.

Halifax threw the ball. I chased it, barged the guy off balance, and copied Chipper's technique of chipping the ball over most of the mud. I hit it to Glenn, turned, and chugged towards Henri.

He won a header. Chipper closed down a defender and blocked his clearance. The ball span in my direction. The left back was going to get there first but I was sure he was going to try to clear the ball down the line. I got in his sightline and he saw a chance to get clever. He would try to kick the ball against me and get a goal kick or a throw in.

I jumped as he made contact with the ball - he simply kicked it out of play.

Grin grin grin.

I yelled out, "Come on, Joshy boy! Square heads, lads, square heads!"

While Josh squelched across from the other side of the pitch, my centre backs lumbered forward. So did Cole and Carl. I decided I would send everyone into the box and defend the halfway line on my own. For a second I even thought about sending Sticky up to cause even more mayhem but while I was confident I could deal with any counter attacks, it wouldn't have been congruent with what I was saying about keeping clean sheets. I had to hold on to some semblance of normality while my new signings - on and off the pitch - settled into the club.

Josh hurled the ball into the box. A defender got his noggin on it, but only as far as Aff. He nodded it back into the mixer and there was another load of messing about. Finally, a defender made contact with a huge right. The ball flew miles up and away from me. Tricky take. Even worse - the new player who had just come on, fresh and not covered in mud like everyone else, was zooming towards me. If I miscontrolled this, he would be one-on-one with Sticky with no defenders anywhere near him.

The ball reached its apex and started to descend. I put my body between where the ball would land and the Halifax player. He angled his run to a point between me and Sticky.

The ball dropped - the player ran five yards.

I got a panicked look on my face - I had misjudged the flight! Shit!

The guy couldn't believe his luck! In his mind's eye, he was already through on goal, deciding what to do.

The ball fell to ankle-height and I booped it behind me. Basically a mid-air Cruyff turn, no big deal. Technique 20, Flair 20. The guy chased shadows. Buh-bye!

I pushed the ball onto one of the solid-looking patches I'd found. It was miles too far out but I concentrated and launched a hard, fast, Beckhamesque cross that swerved from the right of the six-yard box to the left. Just as it was running out of steam, Henri dropped back a couple of yards and redirected the ball square into the mass of bodies.

Not quite square, though. A foot or two ahead of the defensive line.

Too far?

A foot appeared and twatted the ball on the volley. Too high! It would go miles over!

The ball crashed into the top-left of the net. A full half-second later, Halifax's goalie threw his hands up to block the shot.

One-nil! Chipper! How did he keep that shot down? He was leaning back so far he was practically horizontal.

Henri led the charge into the Harry McNally stand. Chipper, Christian Fierce, Cole, Josh, jumping onto each other's backs like they were trying to form a human pyramid. Seemed like fun. I walked to Sandra to tell her what I wanted to do next - move Glenn Ryder to midfield and play centre back myself. "Why?" she said.

"Because I used all my money to buy Christian Fierce and I want to play with my new toy."

"That's not how football works," she said.

"So I shouldn't do it?"

She blew air from her cheeks. "You want to do a high line? Makes sense." She shook her head some more. "Vimsy's right. You're a natural at this. Maybe you evolved from a mud creature."

I scoffed and on my way back, moved Aff to right mid and Glenn Ryder to central midfield. I used the Without Ball screens to drop Glenn to the DM slot and pushed the back four as high as the curse would let me.

Our defence was now Cole, Christian, me, and Carl, and by playing high we would catch Halifax offside if they tried to go long behind us, which they would. If they managed to get past without the offside flag being raised, Christian and I would race each other to be the first on the scene.

"I'm way too fucking good at this," I said. While my players slowly made their way back from the celebrations, I bent and looked at the grass again. I dipped my finger into the mud - that glorious, point-rich mud - and scraped it under my eyes like a commando.

When I got to my feet, Christian Fierce was peering down at me. "You're fucking crazy, you know that?"

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"You wannabe a soft rock all your life?"

His eyes widened and after a moment of pure disbelief, his jaw set. He bent and got some dirt on his fingers. He dragged them across his skin. He growled, "Reporting for duty, sir."

"Ten minutes, mate." I yelled out, "Keep it tight last ten!" This caused me to laugh far too much, but the match was underway.

From his unfamiliar DM slot, Glenn jumped for a header but glanced it, redirecting the ball to my left where the striker might have been able to get it. I leaped and did a fucking amazing diving header. The ball went towards Cole. For once he lost a duel and the winger came away with the ball.

"Go!" I shouted.

Fierce ate up the ground between him and the player and slid in with a thunderous tackle. Fierce, the winger, and the ball slid off the pitch like curling stones. Fierce got up and glared at the rest of the sitch, but I was perfectly positioned between where the winger would have gotten and the striker. Yeah, mate. Maxy boy knows how to play.

While Halifax were in our half, I switched places with Glenn on the tactics screens to make him drop next to Christian. I beefed up the line as a third CB. Their right back took the throw to the winger, who volleyed it straight into our six-yard box. Sticky plucked the ball out of the air and threw it to Chipper. I swapped Ryder back to DM again and insisted on the high line.

For a minute, I focused on the sitch. We seemed to have Halifax absolutely on toast, but I scanned and scanned, triple and quadruple checked my workings.

I relaxed enough to enjoy the man-mountain next to me. Fierce looking fierce. That was the expression we were going to plaster all over town. He was so good he would open up all kinds of new tactics and formations.

I continued to admire him until suddenly he shifted his bodyweight, dropped five yards, jumped, and headed the ball right to me. I caught it on my thigh, did a couple of playful volleys, and joyously smacked it out of play close to the corner flag, fifty yards closer to Yorkshire. Get back, you dogs!

It would be fun to say that for the remaining minutes we fought like lions, attacked like wolves, and wallowed like seals, but the truth is we pushed our opponents into the mud like they were our younger brother. We sat on them while pinning their arms down and laughed until an adult told us to stop.

Three points, clean sheet, job done, and the look on the Brig's face when he saw my war paint was priceless.

***

Sandra did the media while I had an extra-long shower. Fierce was first in next to me. I said, "When's the last time you got called a soft rock?"

He tilted his head. "That was the first. The last, too, I hope."

I smiled. "Can't promise. It's a great theme. By the way, you were man of the match."

"Oh! Thanks. You do that every game?"

"I choose one every game." The curse automatically picked a guy from each team. "Don't always announce it."

"What do I get?"

"You get to tell your grandkids you played centre back with Max Actual Best."

"I was thinking maybe there was a board with our names on and we get a gold star and it's a race to see who gets the most. Like at school."

Carl Carlile was listening. "Don't give him ideas! It'd be just like him to get loads of hard-nosed pros chasing achievement stickers."

As Fierce turned to banter with his fellow defender, I went internal. I'd earned 460 XP from the match and would get something similar on Saturday. The women's matches were giving me 270 a pop. My income was going to be fairly predictable until the end of the season - Old Nick would be delighted.

I was tempted to buy the 1,000 XP Live Tables perk so that I could see the effect of the current scores on the tables. It wasn't just that I had no idea where we were in the table right now - I could shout to Dean or Livia or pretty much anyone who had their phone out. No, I was thinking ahead to frantic, high-pressure end-of-season matches.

If Grimsby were drawing and Barnet were winning two-nil and we were winning four-nil, what would that actually mean? It could mean, for example, that all three teams were level on points but that Chester needed to score two more times to go top of the league. There were plenty of situations where that knowledge could make the difference. Famously, when they were still a football team, Manchester City found themselves in a last-day-of-the-season nailbiter where a player thought their current score was good enough - he took the ball into the corner. He was wrong - City needed another goal. They were relegated with their player fighting hard to keep the score as it was.

Buying the Live Tables perk would surely protect us from that - I would know exactly what was needed even if I was on the pitch.

I wasn't going to be able to afford Relationism by the time I got to Brazil so there was no point stressing about it. I had calculated that saving up for that one would take 47 National League matches in which I played twenty minutes, and that was if I used my current balance and the ten percent discount.

No, it definitely made sense in the current situation to buy the Live Tables perk to go with the Live Scores.

I scratched my head. Maybe it would have made more sense to go straight to the Live Tables? I'd have been able to work out the scores from there.

Nah. Too much work in the middle of a match. I was getting used to using the With Ball Without Ball screens without it costing too much mental energy but the whole player-manager shit was exhausting. I couldn't do maths on top of everything else. I probably shouldn't even have been looking at the perk shop, but the idea had been creeping up on me and not knowing the current situation was just annoying enough to make me slightly rash.

I stopped the water, bought Live Tables and checked it out. The Live Table wasn't exactly live, since all the matches had finished. It was simply the league table, but the screen was in my head now, permanently, and would be, even mid-match. Evolve me, sensei!

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